Justin Phillip Reed

OPEN SEASON

for Jayson

What they won’t do is enumeratethe ever-fresher types of way I’ve learnedto live beneath the gun. Amid this country’slatest crazed nostalgias, my body has been quickest to choreograph a future.This body didn’t teach them all they knowabout gore, but damn if it didn’t try. I fashion from my panic this corona of divergence, and they want my headas trophy for its danger heirlooms. Whatthey should fear in my father is alreadybreath in my chest. Other than my motherwho else can braid a wealth from rain and smoke?What they don’t know is this work. This game.Remember I was venison, was mounted,was mug-shot, and still was serving face.I haven’t been hunted to anybody’s brink. I am the brink. Fuck what they heard. My whole herd has chewed the cud of toedlines and had it with these roaming borders.What they can catch are my cloven hooves:I’ll be all kinds of demon. Put that ona list of shit for which I am now here.